How far should free speech go?

[Cirrus]

I was going to make a different post but in the process of it I actually took the time to read that little waiver on the left side of the text box.

I agree with free speech totally and by that I mean the right to say anything as long as it doesn't threaten another person. Personally I think it's OK to say "I hate all n*ggers" as long as you don't say "I'm going to kill all n*ggers". Don't get the wrong idea I'm not racist at all and don't like people who are but OTOH I respect their right to BE racist if that makes any sense.

I don't really see the difference between substituting the N-word in the above sentence with say, "people who wear jeans". Now if you were to post a No Jeans poster in your office cubicle you might get shit for it but probably not fired, at least not where I work but if you would post a No N*ggers poster you would. Probably sued too. Maybe worse.

Sorry if this starts a full on flame war because I don't mean it to but it's just something I wonder about.

 

[Budman]

If you weren't looking for a war, why post that?

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

Free means free baby.

Look it up in yer Webster's.

Also - run a search and find my threads on the subject - we've beat this one like a rotting horse.

I'd do it for you but I'm too lazy.

 

[Cirrus]

Budman I think you took me wrong. I just wanted to see what other people thought and maybe talk about it. Guess it already has been tho. Oh well.

 

[Laurel]

I posted this on the polygamy thread, but it sort of applies here too:

We all claim we want to be free to live our lives as we see fit, yet many of us support laws - anti-abortion, anti-drugs, anti-porn, anti-guns, anti-polygamy - that restrict the freedom of Americans for no good reason other than some people find those things distasteful. We need to begin to realize what true freedom means. It means that we must put aside our own biases and allow others the right to live as they choose. It means we must live our lives without believing everyone should live as we do - lest we want others to tell us how what we can and cannot do, believe, or think.

It's easier said than done, because it means we have to allow people to say things we don't agree with, that offend us - and the trade off is that we too can say what we feel.

But many important people just don't get it.


"There ought to be limits to freedom."
- President George W. Bush

 

[Svedish_Chef]

At least monarchies and the like just tell the truth.. there isn't free speech

Democracies go oh people can say whatever they want, so long as its not subject to clause A, or the famous Fifth amendment etc...

If its gonna be free let it be.

 

[Andra_Jenny]

It is getting terribly hard to speak the truth whenever race is involved. But we are loosing many rights in our efforts to santitize ourselves [read everyone else but me*]. We are an intolerant, hateful, racist society. And you know what the buck stops at the top and it is our own federal government which sets the tone. 50% of the people noe longer care. The other 50% are divided and, if the rhetoric is to be believed, on the brink of civil war again. I have chosen the side that beleives it is time to go to was against both of the imperial parties of the aristochratic american socialist federal government.


* who remembers the famous quote,
"When they came for the cripples and retarded..."

"When they came for me, there was no one left to defend me."